单选题Income inequality in the United State remained relatively stable for a period of nearly forty years. Beginning in the 1970's, however, this period of stability ended, as the first signs of widening income inequality became apparent. Over the course of the 1970's and 1980's , an increasingly clear trend toward greater income inequality emerged. By the end of the 1980's, the top 20 percent of workers were receiving the largest share of income ever recorded by government figures, and the bottom three fifths were receiving the lowest shares ever recorded. This trend has continued into the 1990's and currently shows no signs of decline. When the indicators of growing inequality were first observed in the 1970's, some researchers argued that the effects were merely temporary artifacts of short-term labor market disturbances. The new occupational structure appears to be one with an increase of well-paid technical, scientific and professional jobs at the top, a sliding middle class, and a growing poorly-paid service and retail jobs at the bottom. Several important labor-force changes appeared to be contributing to the shifting occupational structure. As occupational reconstructing and growing income inequality have become increasingly evident, a heated debate as to the causes and magnitude of these changes arose. Two dominant bodies of thought emerged around the issue: the job-skill mismatch thesis and the polarization thesis. Mismatch theorists argue that there is an increasing distance between the high skill requirements of post-industrial jobs and the inadequate training and mediocre qualifications of workers. They see the post-industrial economy leaving behind unskilled workers, especially women and minorities. For the mismatch theorist, the trend toward greater inequality is temporary arid will dissipate once the supply of workers acquires the skills demanded by a post-industrial economy. And they predict that the workers will experience an upgrading in their wages over the long run. Polarization theorists, on the other hand, believe that the rise in inequality is permanent, a result of the shift to a service-based economy. This vision of the postindustrial economy is characteristically polarized. The problem according to these theorists, is the type of jobs being generated in the new economy, not worker attributes. Because they believe the causes are structural and permanent, polarization theorists would deny the efficacy of public policies designed to educate and train unskilled workers. They predict a long-term continuation of the trend towards increasing income inequality. Studies show that the long-run increase in income inequality is also related to changes in the Nation's labor market and its household composition. The wage distribution has become considerably more unequal with more highly skilled, trained and educated workers at the top experiencing real wage gains and those at the bottom real wage losses. One factor is the shift in employment from those goods-producing industries that have disproportionately provided high-wage opportunities for low-skilled workers, towards services that disproportionately employ college graduates, and towards low-wage sectors such as retail trade. But within industry, shifts in labor demand away from less-educated workers are perhaps a more important explanation of eroding wages than the shift out of manufacturing. Also cited as putting downward pressure on the wages of less-educated workers are intensifying global competition and immigration, the decline of the proportion of workers belonging to unions, the decline in the real value of the minimum wage, the increasing need for computer skills, and the increasing use of temporary workers.

单选题 The United States has historically had higher rates of marriage than those of other industrialized countries. The current annual marriage{{U}} (1) {{/U}}in the United States-about 9 new marriages for every 1, 000 people-is{{U}} (2) {{/U}}higher than it is in other industrialized countries. However, marriage is{{U}} (3) {{/U}}as widespread as it was several decades ago.{{U}} (4) {{/U}}of American adults who are married{{U}} (5) {{/U}}from 72 percent in 1970 to 60 percent in 2002. This does not mean that large numbers of people will remain unmarried{{U}} (6) {{/U}}their lives. Throughout the 20th century, about 90 percent of Americans married at some{{U}} (7) {{/U}}in their lives. Experts{{U}} (8) {{/U}}that about the same proportion of today's young adults will eventually marry. The timing of marriage has varied{{U}} (9) {{/U}}over the past century. In 1995 the average age of women in the United States at the{{U}} (10) {{/U}}of their first marriage was 25. The average age of men was about 27. Men and women in the United States marry{{U}} (11) {{/U}}the first time at an average of five years later than people{{U}} (12) {{/U}}in the 1950s.{{U}} (13) {{/U}}, young adults of the 1950s married younger than did any previous{{U}} (14) {{/U}}in U. S. history. Today's later age of marriage is{{U}} (15) {{/U}}the age of marriage between 1890 and 1940.{{U}} (16) {{/U}}, a greater proportion of the population was married (95 percent) during the 1950s than at any time before{{U}} (17) {{/U}}. Experts do not agree on{{U}} (18) {{/U}}the "marriage rush" of the late 1940s and 1950s occurred, but most social scientists believe it represented a{{U}} (19) {{/U}}to the return of peaceful life and prosperity after 15 years of severe economic{{U}} (20) {{/U}}and war.

单选题Analysts have their go at humor, and I have read some of this interpretative literature, (1) without being greatly instructed. Humor can be (2) , (3) a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are (4) to any but the pure scientific mind. One of the things (5) said about humorists is that they are really very sad people-clowns with a breaking heart. There is some truth in it, but it is badly (6) . It would be more (7) , I think, to say that there is a deep vein of melancholy running through everyone's life and that the humorist, perhaps more (8) of it than some others, compensates for it actively and (9) . Humorists fatten on troubles. They have always made trouble (10) . They struggle along with a good will and endure pain (11) , knowing how well it will (12) them in the sweet by and by. You find them wrestling with foreign languages, fighting folding ironing boards and swollen drainpipes, suffering the terrible (13) of tight boots. They pour out their sorrows profitably, in a (14) of what is not quite fiction nor quite fact either. Beneath the sparking surface of these dilemmas flows the strong (15) of human woe. Practically everyone is a manic depressive of sorts, with his up moments and his down moments, and you certainly don't have to be a humorist to (16) the sadness of situation and mood. But there is often a rather fine line between laughing and crying, and if a humorous piece of writing brings a person to the point (17) his emotional responses are untrustworthy and seem likely to break over into the opposite realm, it is (18) humor, like poetry, has an extra content, it plays (19) to the big hot fire which is Truth, and sometimes the reader feels the (20) .

单选题One of the most important social developments that helped to make possible a shift in thinking about the r01e of public education was the effect of the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s on the schools. In the 1920s, but especially in the Depression conditions of the 1930s, the United States experienced a declining birth rate—every thousand women aged fifteen to forty-four gave birth to about 118 live children in 1920, 89.2 in 1930, 75.8 in 1936, and 80 in 1940. With the growing prosperity brought on by the Second World War and the economic boom that followed it, young people married and established households earlier and began to raise larger families than had their predecessors during the Depression. Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946, 106.2 in 1950, and 118 in 1955. Although economics was probably the most important determinant, it is not the only explanation for the baby boom. The increased value placed on the idea of the family also helps to explain this rise in birth rates. The baby boomers began streaming into the first grade by the mid-1940s and became a flood by 1950. The public school system suddenly found itself overtaxed. While the number of schoolchildren rose because of wartime and postwar conditions, these same conditions made the schools even less prepared to cope with the flood. The wartime economy meant that few new schools were built between 1940 and 1945. Moreover, during the war and in the boom times that followed, large numbers of teachers left their profession for better-paying jobs elsewhere in the economy. Therefore, in the 1950s and 1960s, the baby boom hit an antiquated and inadequate school system. Consequently, the " custodial rhetoric " of the 1930s and early 1940s no longer made sense; that is, keeping youths aged sixteen and older out of the labor market by keeping them in school could no longer be a high priority for an institution unable to find space and staff to teach younger children aged five to sixteen. With the baby boom, the focus of educators and of laymen interested in education inevitably turned toward the lower grades and back to basic academic skills and discipline. The system no longer had much interest in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services to older youth.

单选题If phone calls and web pages can be beamed through the air to portable devices, then why not electrical power, too? It is a question many consumers and device manufacturers have been asking themselves for some time. But to seasoned observers of the electronics industry, the promise of wireless recharging sounds depressingly familiar. In 2004 Splashpower, a British technology firm, was citing “very strong” interest from consumer-electronics firms for its wireless charging pad. Based on the principle of electromagnetic induction (EMI) that Faraday had discovered in the 19th century, the company’s “Splashpad” contained a coil that generated a magnetic field when a current flowed through it. When a mobile device containing a corresponding coil was brought near the pad, the process was reversed as the magnetic field generated a current in the second coil, charging the device’ s battery without the use of wires. Unfortunately, although Faraday’s principles of electromagnetic induction have stood the test of time, Splashpower has not — it was declared bankrupt last year without having launched a single product. Thanks to its simplicity .and measurability, electromagnetic induction is still the technology of choice among many of the remaining companies in the wireless-charging arena. But, as Splashpower found, turning the theory into profitable practice is not straightforward. But lately there have been some promising developments. The first is the formation in December 2008 of the Wireless Power Consortium, a body dedicated to establishing a common standard for inductive wireless charging, and thus promoting its adoption. The new consortium’s members include big consumer-electronics firms, such as Philips and Sanyo, as well as Texas Instruments, a chipmaker. Fierce competition between manufacturers of mobile devices is also accelerating the introduction of wireless charging. The star of this year’s Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas was the Pre, a smart-phone from Palm. The Pre has an optional charging pad, called the Touchstone, which uses electromagnetic induction to charge the device wirelessly. As wireless-charging equipment based on electromagnetic induction heads towards the market, a number of alternative technologies are also being developed. PowerBeam, a start-up based in Silicon Valley, uses lasers to beam power from one place to another. It now seems to be a matter of when, rather than if, wireless charging enters the mainstream. And if those in the field do find themselves languishing in the disillusionment, they could take some encouragement from Faraday himself. He observed that “nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.” Not even a wirelessly rechargeable iPhone.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} Even for overachievers who are used to multitasking, the idea of watching two versions of the same television show at the same time--one on television and one on a computer—is something that is probably foreign to most people over the age of 30. To the eternally young brains that nm MTV, however, it is the next step in reshaping their business. Beginning this summer with the MTV Video Music Awards and continuing in the fall with the cable channel's live afternoon program, "Total Request Live," MTV will offer two simultaneous versions of each show, one on television and another, focusing on a behind-the-scenes narrative, on its broadband channel, MTV Overdrive. "We do tons of research on our audience, and it shows that they are instant messaging and listening to music and watching TV all at the same time," said Christina Norman, president of MTV. "We've definitely seen them become more adept at navigating through multiple media. They live comfortably in several worlds at once." The Overdrive component, located at mtv.com, will feature a sort of video digression that will continue to stream live while the television show is broadcasting commercials. For example, if a viewer wants to watch an entire music video after a snippet is shown on the "Total Request Live" video countdown, or take a backstage tour with Jamie Foxx after he finishes his onstage appearance on the set of "T.R.L." (as the show is familiarly known), Overdrive will be the place to turn. "Doing three things at once when you're 19 years old is not hard," said Dave Sirulnick, an executive vice president at MTV who oversees multiplatform production, news and music. Last Thursday at MTV's studios in Times Square, Mr. Sirulnick proved adept at doing at least two things at once, dashing between two control rooms that were steps away from each other just down the hallway from the "T.R.L." set. It was the second test-run of simultaneous production, and in each control room-one for Overdrive, one for "T.R.L". —separate sets of directors and producers guided cameramen and the show's hosts, known as V.J.'s, through their paces. "No one that we know has done a live stream of a different signal of an existing show." Mr. Sirulnick said. "It's a live parallel experience, one that very quickly turns into an on-demand experiment" with portions of each show archivcd and kept on the Overdrive site for fans to replay at will.

单选题The IQ is______

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} "Worse than useless," fumed Darrell Issa, a Republican congressman from California, on March 19th, when the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Terrible, and getting worse," added Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic colleague who has kept a watchful eye on the INS for ten years. Committee members lined up to take swings at James Ziglar, the head of the INS. He explained, somewhat pathetically, that "outdated procedures" had kept the visa-processing wheels grinding slowly through a backlog of applications. He also had some new rules in mind to tighten up visas. Speeding up the paperwork--and getting more of it on to computers--is vital, but the September attacks have exposed the tension between the agency's two jobs: on the one hand enforcing the security of America's borders, and on the other granting privileges such as work permits to foreigners. But other people want more radical changes. James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin, wants to split the INS into two separate bodies, one dealing with border security and the other with handling benefits to immigrants. The other approach, favored in the White House, is to treat the two functions as complementary, and to give the INS even more responsibility for security. Under that plan, the INS would merge with the Customs Service, which monitors the 20m shipments of goods brought into America every year, as well as the bags carried in by some 500m visitors. The two agencies would form one large body within the Department of Justice, the current home of the INS. This would cut out some of the duplicated effort at borders, where customs officers and agents from the INS's Border Patrol often rub shoulders but do not work together. Mr Bush--who has said that the news of the visa approvals left him "plenty hot" --was expected to give his approval. The senate, however, may not be quite so keen. The Justice Department could have trouble handling such a merger, let alone taking on the considerable economic responsibilities of the Customs Service, which is currently part of the Treasury. The senate prefers yet another set of security recommendations, including links between the databases of different agencies that hold security and immigration information, and scanners at ports of entry to check biometric data recorded on immigration documents. These ideas are embodied in a bill sponsored by members of both parties, but are currently held up by Robert Byrd, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, who worries that there has not been enough debate on the subject. Mr Ziglar, poor chap, may feel there Nas been more than enough.

单选题{{B}}Text 4{{/B}} Few people, except conspiracy theorists, would have expected so public a spat as the one this week between the two ringmasters of Formula One (F1) motor racing. Bernie Ecclestone. a very wealthy British motor sport entrepreneur, is at odds. it would seem. with his longstanding associate. Max Mosley, president of Fl's governing body, the Federation International de l'Automobile (FIA). On the surface, the dispute has broken out over what looked like a done deal. Last June. the FIA voted unanimously to extend Mr. Ecclestone's exclusive fights to stage and broadcast Fl racing, which expire in 2010, by t00 years. For these favourable rights, Mr. Ecelestone was to pay the FIA a mere $360 million in total, and only $60 million immediately. The FIA claims that Mr. Ecclestone has not made the payment of $60 million, a claim denied by Mr. Ecclestone. who insists the money has been placed in an escrow account. Mr. Mosley has asked Mr. Ecclestone to pay up or risk losing the deal for the Fl rights after 2010. perhaps m a group of car makers that own Fl teams. For his part. Mr. Ecclestone has, rather theatrically, accused Mr. Mosley of "trying to do some extortion". What is going on? Only three things can be stated with confidence. First. the idea that Mr. Ecclestone cannot find the 560 million is ridiculous: his family trust is not exactly short of cash. having raised around $2 billion in the past two years. Second. it would not be in Mr. Ecclestone's long-term financial interest to discard a deal which could only enhance the value of his family's remaining 50% stake in SLEC. the holding company for the group of companies that runs the commercial side of F1. Third. the timing of the dispute is very interesting. Why? Because the other.50% stake in SLEC. owned by EM. TV. a debt-ridden German media company, is up for sale. EM. TV badly needs to sell this stake in the near future to keep its bankers at dead end. The uncertainty created by the dispute between Mr. Ecclestone and Mr. Mosley might depress the value of EM. TV's holding. Could that work to Mr. Ecctestone's advantage? Quite possibly. The lower the value of EM. TV's stake, the higher the relative value of an option Mr. Ecclestone holds to sell a further 25% of SLEC m EM. TV for around $1 billion--and the better the deal Mr. Ecclestone might be able to extract for surrendering the option. Whoever buys EM. TV's stake in SLEC will have to negotiate with Mr. Ecclestone over this instrument. The Economist understands that Mr. Ecclestone has the fight to veto a plan proposed last December by Kireh, a privately owned German media group, to buy half of EM. TV's holding for $550 million. In the coming weeks, Mr. Ecclestone will doubtless be deploying his formidable negotiating skills to best advantage. It would be hasty to bet against his securing a good deal out of EM. TV's difficulties. His dispute with the F1A may then be easily resolved. As usual, he holds all the cards.

单选题The expression "hew very closely to" can be best replaced by

单选题Shell "can't get their act together" ( Line 10, Paragraph 2) because

单选题It is generally believed that oil produced in the Gulf